Spilled Milk: Based on a True Story

Cristin attempts to set Brooke up with Jason to no avail, but when Brooke runs into Jason at a gas station one night, they decide to spend the evening together. Jason drives an old pickup truck and wears worn-out clothes, but Brooke finds something appealing about him. A few weeks pass, and Brooke sees Jason working at an autobody shop and decides to leave her number. On their second date, Jason pulls Brooke in for a kiss, and they become inseparable. When Jason notices that Brooke is living in her car, he invites her to live with him and his mother. She refrains from telling Jason the details of her past, and eight months after the initial police reports, Earl is arrested. He is bailed out the next day, and the preliminary hearing follows. Brooke has to describe her abuse in front of a courtroom, but the harrowing process is followed with love and comfort from Jason, who gifts Brooke a necklace for their six-month anniversary. Brooke finally decides to share her past with Jason, and he is visibly pained. He assures Brooke that her past doesn’t change how he feels about her: “Something like that would never change how I feel about you, because that’s something that happened to you. It’s not who you are” (227). He tells Brooke that he plans to marry her, and Brooke feels a relief unlike anything she has ever experienced.

Brooke is weeks away from graduating high school. She is constantly missing classes for court dates, and on one occasion, a teacher attempts to make an example of her. When he is later informed of Brooke’s situation, he apologizes for how he acted. Soon after, Brooke receives a call from her victim advocate Heather, telling her that the defense (Brooke’s father) is requesting more time and demanding that Brooke undergo a physical and psychological evaluation. Earl pleads not guilty, initiating a trial set for fall. Meanwhile, Brooke is accepted into Penn State, and asks Jason if he’ll move there with her; he takes a moment to consider but agrees to go. When Brooke and Jason go on vacation to Canada with Jason’s mother, Jason proposes to Brooke underneath a waterfall; Brooke happily accepts. Jason apologizes for not being present for young Brooke, but Brooke insists she wouldn’t have been ready to reveal her secret anyway. On the way home, Brooke calls her mother, who demands money for bills and criticizes Brooke for wanting to move into an apartment with Jason. Molly claims Brooke should be at home instead: “Now I know why women don’t tell on their husbands, how are they supposed to survive?” (240). Brooke suddenly wonders if her mother was complicit in her abuse. After the call, Jason starts to question Molly, and finds out that Molly has been stealing extra money from Brooke by lying to her about the cost of insurance. Brooke feels as if her relationship with her mother is damaged beyond repair.

Brooke finds out that Midge is moving to Colorado for a job opportunity and is upset that she won’t have Midge’s support through the rest of the court process. Midge urges her to find a new counselor and continue healing, and when Brooke asks Midge if she was ever abused, Midge decides to tell her story. She admits to being sexually assaulted by her older brother one night and running through a glass door to a neighbor’s house to escape. Her brother managed to lie his way into a shorter sentence, and then succeeded in a plea bargain soon after. Her mother allowed her brother to move back in, exposing Midge to the possibility of further abuse. It wasn’t until he assaulted a small child years later that he was finally imprisoned for life. Midge tells Brooke that she is lucky to have the support of people like herself and Gina, as she herself did not. She asks Brooke to promise to never back down or feel guilty over Earl’s punishment. Afterward, Brooke prepares for Earl’s trial, and is shown to the courtroom by her victim advocate Heather.

When it is Brooke’s turn to testify during Earl’s trial, she bravely tells her story through a flood of tears as the courtroom listens. After her lawyer completes his questioning, Earl’s defense lawyer presents her own line of questions. She begins by asking Brooke about an argument surrounding a car, and Brooke denies it; the lawyer then points out that Brooke achieved high grades on the days she claimed to be sexually assaulted by her father, and tries to claim that Brooke was angry at her father for not allowing her to sleep at her boyfriend’s house. When the jury brings up the day of social services’ visit to Brooke’s school, when she told them that Earl’s instances of abuse were dreams, Brooke’s lawyer steps in and allows her to clarify why she lied. Molly testifies to little avail, but both Gina and Aunt Jean provide vital information about Brooke’s past wellbeing. When the verdict is given, the jury announces their inability to reach a decision, and Earl is found neither guilty nor innocent. Brooke bursts into tears as she talks to Gina, telling her that she cannot endure another trial. Uncharacteristic of a jury, the 12 members meet Brooke outside and assure her that they believe her story. The one juror in doubt apologizes, and they promise Brooke that they will back her up when she goes to retrial.

Brooke lies in bed, unable to process the idea of going to court all over again. She breaks down, venting to Jason about everything she feels she is handling wrong: her own anger, her siblings’ denial of her abuse, and her mother’s money problems. Brooke thinks back to a time when Midge warned her that one day, the anger from years of abuse would well up inside her, and she knows this time is near. When Jason touches Brooke in a way that reminds her of her father, she screams and takes off her engagement ring before leaving the apartment. She calls Gina and tells her that she feels guilty for missing Paul, that she cannot handle another trial, and still has nightmares about her father. Gina confesses that she heard Brooke’s brother Thomas walked in on Earl assaulting Brooke one night, and Earl then assaulted him. Brooke is shocked, linking this information to how Thomas has recently been in and out of detention centers. Her protective instinct surfaces once more, and she decides to testify again.

Brooke returns to court with her head held high and prepared to answer questions. When Earl’s lawyer questions her, she confidently explains how and when she was sexually assaulted, why she didn’t confide in anyone for so long, and how she came to realize that her experiences weren’t normal. When asked what she wants to see happen to Earl, she answers, “I just want to make sure that he can never hurt anybody ever again” (276). Finally, Brooke explains that her grades were so high despite her abuse because she coped by studying. When she pulls some chemistry cards out of her pocket, her lawyer smiles, knowing her point is proven. After the trial, Brooke has dinner with Gina, her aunt, uncle, lawyer, and victim advocate Heather, and hears that Earl attempted to defend himself by downplaying his actions rather than denying them. Soon, the verdict is called in, and the jury finds Earl guilty of “nine felonies and twelve misdemeanors” (280). Brooke watches as he accepts his sentence, stone-faced and still. She drives home with Gina to tell her siblings the news of their father’s imprisonment, playing “Goodbye Earl” at full blast.